If you’d had to flee the dopamine would let you run faster and motivate you to escape as quick as possible.

Some people may get more of a kick from that than others.

But even if you enjoy this fearkick, most of us are relieved when the fear we felt is over and many people like that.

Remember your last horror movie or your last time you had to go to the basement where the light is flickering and its cold and where the wind blows through the air pipe and creates scary noises.

At time likes these nearly anybody has to cheer for himself with sentences like “Don’t worry! Monsters aren’t real!”, “You can do it! Just a few steps more!”, “Don’t close your eyes, this is the most exciting part in this movie!”.

After you overcame the situation you were proud of yourself and probably thought “I did it! I survived!”

And that is a real boost for your self esteem!

And we remember these situations for a long time because dopamine works like a reminder and helps our brain to build strong memories.

OFCL

That’s also the reason, why the age labeling on movies are VERY IMPORTANT!

There is a reason why Green, Yellow, Orange, Red, Brown, Blue, Black and Age ratings exist in nearly all countries of the world.

Children’s brains don’t know if the monsters and the scenes they see in movies are real so their brain just releases dopamine in a fear situation, the brain forms strong memories and children get traumatized!

So following these rating is recommended to keep your children safe and keep them from being harmed.

And to be honest, a fun-fear situation is nothing compared to a real situation of fear!

As our bodies are programmed to life and the brain wants us to survive the amount of domapine released in a real fear situation is far higher…

The most interesting Part to me is that fear evolves over the generations!

Our earliest ancestors were afraid of bears and other wild animals.

In the medieval ages people were afraid of Satan or witches or the black death.

About 30 years ago people were afraid of Nosferatu and the overtake of the Government by Aliens.

Nowadays many people are afraid of Vampires or Werewolves or Aliens.

A study performed in the 1920’s show what fear can be educated.

Back then doctors weren’t ethical so they took a baby named Albert and exposed him to several things like a white rabbit, a cat, a dog, wool, masks and other stimuli.

Little Albert showed no fear so the doctors tried some techniques and the result was that Albert became highly afraid of furry animals such as rats, cats or rabbits.

Normally no one would be afraid of rabbits, although many women are afraid of mice or rats.

I mean, yes a filthy street rat can be scary but mice are small and they hurt noone…

So how come they fear little mice when they are not harmful to humans but only to food in pantries?

What DO people fear?

While doing research I found out that people are often afraid of things that defy the laws of nature such as Nature Spirits or Yokais (supernatural Japanese monsters).

And people are afraid of things that exceed their perception such as deep waters(anything coul dbe under you) which is called bathophobia and the fear of darkness (maybe there is something hiding), which is called Achluophobia.